Hilarity

Yeah, folks, this one is a doozy. The problem is, it really shouldn’t be. But the human trend of being overly emotional, irrational, and just plain nuts rules the day on Planet Earth, and so we have this fracas that, as Marc Barnes so eloquently put it, has all the sense and reason of a Snorlax who just snorted his weight in high quality crack cocaine (Note: They weigh about 1,000 Ilbs).

Which is to say, NONE.

RESPECT MY OPINIONS, YOU BIGOT!!!

With the recent reviewing of the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8 by the Supreme Court, and the surrounding media mess, I figure that it might as well be time to put up my thoughts on the entire situation, from same-sex marriage itself to the origins of homosexuality.

See, I happen to think that this whole “Gay” movement has only gotten as far as it has due to misinformation, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and general falsehood, intentionally or unintentionally pursued and promoted by either side of the debate. Well, that and a toxic mix of hypercharged fear and misplaced compassion.

So now that I am dropping this multi-megaton bomb on y’all, I might as well lay out how I intend to go about it. My position, and the subject itself, is far too nuanced and complex to cover in a single post without addling the brain. Because of this, I will be covering it in many, many parts.

Part 1: The Big Gay Dance-Introducing the Gay Rights movement and why they have the power they have. Part of this is the Opposition’s fault.

Part 2: In Which I Rip the APA and Kinsey a New One- You know, for being scientifically unprofessional and intellectually inconsistent. Because, you know, they were just enlightened and so far ahead of the rest of us…

Part 3: You Sold Me Queer Giraffes-Dealing with homosexuality in the Animal Kingdom and how it pertains to the debate.

Part 4: Starscream, Shine on You Crazy Diamond-Breaking down homosexuality into its base components. Also, pertaining analysis of the transgender issue.

Part 5: Putting Together the Rainbow-Final thoughts and a conclusive message on where we should go from here.

I reserve the right to extend various parts into multiple posts if I have to. Get ready, because it has begun!

I also reserve the right to interrupt this flow with anything I find cool enough to write about. ‘Cause it’s my blog.

So, I have managed to come up with a rather fun idea to pass the time, and I think the rest of you would enjoy it as well. The concept was inspired by, or almost ripped entirely from, to be honest, this photo:

Pardon the language, of course.

HORDOR!

I found this humorous.

Anyway, the rules of the Super Hero League Game are as follows: Use Google Image Search. Find a random image of a group photo. Facebook is also good for this. Proceed to give them heroic names and assign each superpowers or gimmicks based on how they look in the image, and leave a link in the comments! Here is one of mine below. Naturally, you don’t have to choose kids, but I wanted to stay in keeping with the original.

The Youngbloods, from Left to Right, Top to Bottom: Whiz Kid– Super Speedster, Witty Remarks Thin Lizzy– Able to stretch any part of her body into any dimensions she desires. The Xander– Team Leader, Smarter than a Fifth Grader, Master Strategist, Kung Fu Prodigy Witcheye– Her gaze is powered by the arcane, and pierces all barriers. Also, firebolts. Iron Jane-Invulnerable, Super Strength Specs-Technological Genius, High-tech Battlesuit equipped with the latest weaponry, finances team off of patent royalties. Princess Andronica the Enchantress-Penchant for pomp and circumstance, and a spellcaster from another dimension, where her true form was a pink alicorn. Is also, of course, obsessed with ponies. Chrissy, the Devourer– Unceasingly hungry, her hyperactive metabolism gives her superhuman healing, speed, reaction time, and strength. She must constantly eat to maintain consciousness.

Right now, you are on the internet, reading a blog. This gives me sufficient reason to believe that you know a bit about the World Wide Web. So I am going to assume that you have probably heard about online trolling, even if that lone word is all you have seen of it.

Unfortunately, internet trolling is not nearly this awesome.

You know, it is interesting, there is a vast body of material that most people throw under the label of “trolling”, but given the general definition I have gleaned from some self-described trolls, most of it does not really apply at all. For example, playing a prank, ribbing someone, and all other varieties of tomfoolery often receive the trolling label, but are not bona fide trolling. In fact, all of these are usually just lighthearted fun and games, and are things most healthy people take part in.

What is it with the strange attraction pet butts have to unsuspecting faces, anyway?

You can even find self-proclaimed trolls who use harsh pranks or deceptive means to enlighten people to new ways of thinking about subjects that normally are too taboo or too hotly debated to deal with in everyday discussion. While I do not really condone this sort of tactic, as head games feel dishonest and I prefer to be direct and up front, this again is not necessarily harmful or mean-spirited. In many cases, even the more brutal trolls seem to consider themselves some sort of vicious, unforgiving Schoolmaster sent to educate the poorly informed and misguided. Naturally, this can easily lead to some swelled ego and other such problems, but the desire to uplift others, in however rough and unkind a manner, is not in itself a bad thing.
What trolling is, in its purest form, is simply the introduction of chaos and suffering into a situation. It does not matter if the situation was already chaotic and full of suffering. A true troll will find his amusement in this chaos and the negative reactions of others. According to the nigh-omniscient Wikipedia, trolls of the most uncouth sort have gone so far as to send families images of the mutilated corpses of their relatives, children even, who recently died in car wrecks. Others have conducted postmortem smear campaigns against those who have committed suicide, in full view of their grieving friends. Granted, not all trolls are that vicious, and many simply stalk the internet looking only for attention of any kind, but the fact that there are people so depraved as to do the above is a sign of the times.

Internet trolling is actually sadder than this lonely fella here.

It is a sign that people are thoroughly bored and unsatisfied with their lives. To the point where they will deliberately inflict cruelty upon their fellow human beings just for the fun of it, or worse, just because. There has to be something deeply lacking in your existence when you look at a sentient being, made in the image and likeness of God Almighty, and say “You seem like you would be fun to make suffer.” Note how that phrase sounds like a poorly written villain from a child’s cartoon? That is because both things are equally feeble minded and weak. What loneliness brings a person to find comfort in the spite and rage of others? What insecurity allows a person to find pleasure and self-worth in their ability to cause emotional harm to others? What desperate need for control and stability propels a man to incite disorder and confusion, so that at least he pulls the strings of that turmoil, even if his strings are being pulled in every other area of his life?

The answer is simple: nothing good.

Over the years I have gradually come to believe that trolling is a major warning sign of how far our culture has fallen. It is the symptom of the rot of the age. Only when Man forgets that he and all his brothers and sisters are the Children of God, can he truly be cruel for the sake of that cruelty. Only when he loses sight of all Purpose and Meaning because those things have been either ripped from him by force, or taken by sleight of hand and replaced with shallow caricatures of Freedom and Love, can he be so truly bored and unsatisfied that his cruelty can become a welcome distraction from his emptiness.

Like most trolls, Discord initially does not seem that dangerous.

An absolutely perfect example of this decay is illustrated by the character Discord from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Now, you may be asking, why would a grown-ass man know anything about a cartoon for six-year-old girls? Because there is this thing called the Brony Phenomenon, and I was curious as to why so many men my age counted themselves as fans of the program. While the show has many excellent and wonderful qualities as a Tame Aslan (if you do not understand my reference, read more C.S. Lewis), and if I had young daughters they would be watching it for certain, it was, in the end, just a show for young girls, and it could not hold my interest. But, for the record, FLUTTERSHY IS BEST PONY. Anyone who says otherwise receives a fierce jackboot to the neck. Props to John C. Wright for that violent phraseology.

One of the more notable episodes I viewed was the Season 2 pilot. Well, I guess it’s not a pilot if the show got off the ground already, but it was not a finale either. Hmmm…enough digressing. On with the thrust of the matter! Discord makes his appearance, turns out to be voiced by the guy who plays Q in Star Trek: the Next Generation (in some ways, they’re practically the same role), and sets to some relatively harmless but chaotic hijinks until he finds that not everyone wants to play along.

True to troll-form, he ups the stakes because people (or in this case, ponies) had finished with his attention-whoring. He, in full knowledge of what he is doing, and laughing every minute of it, deceives, mind-warps, and generally corrupts the main characters. It works on everyone except Fluttershy, because she is supposed to represent kindness, love, innocence, you know, all those tender things. I will get to why in a minute. He has to practically shatter her mind and rebuild it to his specifications in order to have his way. He breaks her with extreme prejudice.

Why? Because Fluttershy is the solution to Man’s Modern Decay. The only way we are going to heal the wounds caused by our devouring boredom and our inhumanity to ourselves is through authentic love and kindness. When Discord gets all up in her grill, she simply responds with meekness, respect (despite the fact that he’s an oddly shaped dragon-monster-thing hell-bent on throwing the world out of whack), and compassion, even in the face of his mutterings that her gentleness will one day allow her to be hurt deeply by others. This is Christ-like, honest-to-goodness LOVE we are seeing here. And Discord cannot stand it.

See, Discord is a wonderful way to teach kids about Satan. He is proud. He is arrogant. He is cruel.

And he is absolutely lonely.

To paraphrase Lewis, only in Heaven and Hell are you shielded from the vulnerability that comes with Love.

Note well how this also sounds like the average serious troll. Have you ever noticed how trolls, or any truly hurting people, tend to lash out at those who try and help them? They cannot withstand the goodness, for the healing it brings puts them in a place where they feel they have less power. The Devil removed himself from God in Pride and in a desire to control. He feared being beholden to another. Accepting kindness leaves you at the mercy of the one giving it to you. Love is practically synonymous with vulnerability. The Devil, Discord, and trolls hate the weakness that comes with Love, the lack of control, the lack of power it entails.

Therein lies the rub. In order to end the rot of the Modern Age, and in so doing the symptom of trolling, we must end two things, our boredom and our objectification of ourselves. We must remind Man that he is Man again. We must remind him that he is made in the image and likeness of God, the Creator of the Universe. We must get him to think and feel and leap with joy and cry out in despair and all those other beautiful things that Man was made to do by his Creator. We must regain our Humanity. No one can truly see another as human and view them as private pawns for self-amusement.

The beautiful thing is that the boredom will fade after that. Man is capable of choosing to follow his Purpose, is capable of finding Meaning, by the very nature of being Man in the truest sense of the word. The lifeless Turing machines so many see themselves as these days, however, are not. They might have functions, oh yes, and some of those functions might be pleasurable, but when life is just lived because it is there, because we can, it becomes dull. With no end game, with no real soul, we lapse into the deathly boredom we have now. No matter what we invent, our souls will cry out for still more, and eventually we will all come to the realization that running in a hamster wheel is pointless.

The even-more-beautiful thing about this situation is that we can accomplish both by unselfishly loving. It is truly that simple.

We rose late in the evening for our waking prayers, according to our strict spiritual regimen. Then, a breakfast of coarse dark bread and lukewarm water and following that, general calisthenics to limber up . Our crucifix-shurikens and crosier-naginata had to be sharpened then, in preparation for the coming mission. We were to put down any and all resistance by use of aggravated force and flagellation. The Sister Superior that lead our team into battle inspected our gear before we boarded the stealth plane that was to take us to our drop zone. She shattered Father John’s windpipe with her elbow for having his rosary-garrote tangled. That was a mistake that may have cost him his life in the right situation, and he paid for it with his last breath so that we might learn. When the price of failure is Eternal Damnation, no precaution is too severe, no punishment for transgression too harsh. Finding the rest of us to her liking, we all boarded the plane. I was surprised to notice the Ultra-Secret Brethren of the Bladed Cross standing there, four of them, no less, in full battle dress. Apparently, our mission was going to involve actual open war in the Name of the Holy Mother Church and Pope Hitler XVI.

We spent the trip over in silent prayer, meditating on the Nine-thousand Agonizing Sorrows of the Ever Virgin, mulling over each bloody, painful detail in our hearts and minds until we all saw red. Our mission tonight, we were told, by Sister Superior Agnes of the Bleeding Rent Heart of Jesus, was to put a stop to some little flea who dared think to order the Vatican around in his own pathetic Democracy, by some sort of Healthcare Mandate. How amusing. Someone actually felt that women had rights before they became the Improved Humans ready to serve in a Religious Order. We would put a stop to that.

We were ready for the drop. While reciting the Litany of Litanies, we jumped from the plane several miles up, completely cloaked by a cloud of blessed incense. Everyone but the Sister Superior and the Brethren of the Bladed Cross went into swan dives, streaking down towards the target. The Brethren turned on the jump jets on their Mark MM Crucifixion Mobile Battlesuits, and Sister Superior use her specially modified habit as a parachute. We met some anti-aircraft fire as we went down, but nothing the Brethren could not deal with. They unleashed frankincense shrapnel grenades, covering our descent with the flurry of their explosions. Any flak that got through glanced off of our body armor, by the Grace of God. When it came time for impact, we opened our chutes and veered away from one another, each of us heading to our specific objectives. Some of us would be combing this entire country over the next several months as field agents, blowing up abortion clinics, stealing birth control from the distributors, and sabotaging their production so that none of the new product functioned in the way God never intended. The rest, myself included, would serve as a show of force so that the Will of the Pope should never be again questioned by this “President” fellow.

The Brethren hit the ground first, their landing blowing up and area the size of a city block. Sister ran interference for them, handling any local law enforcement officers before they could react. As if the “law” they tried to enforce had any bearing on those who followed Divine Law…The battlesuits opened up with a salvo from their shoulder-mounted rail-guns, destroying some sort of stupid white tower nearby. Then, they extended their four-bladed cross swords and charged the enemy, Heaven-bent on unleashing as much destruction as possible…..

So, if you haven’t stopped reading yet, I hope you recognize that this is one giant joke. I would never condone anything like this, nor does it exist.

I wrote this silliness in response to all the people who have decided to defend the HHS Mandate that forces the Church to pay for what it deems a grievous Evil by claiming that we are trying to enforce a Theocracy or control women. I will not go into the various reasons why the Mandate, even with that false compromise “Dear Leader” President Barack Obama placed in their to insult our intelligence, is a violation of every American’s Constitutional Rights. The problem there should be obvious. What I will do is tell you that what our opponents claim is utterly ridiculous.

There is no secret abortion-doctor assassination squad that also sabotages birth control pill factories. We have no power-armored monks to storm the capitol and force the Will of the Church upon America. We have no real power to stop women from using as many contraceptives and having as many abortions as they desire. All we can do is preach against it, and not allow them to be paid for with our money. That is why we fight this Mandate. We are being forced to pay for that which we find Evil. Our Consciences are being violated by Government Force. That is all. No more, and no less.

And yet our detractors pretend that the above drivel is exactly what we wish to occur. Of all the ignorant ways to defend tyranny, this has to be one of the most base and intellectually lacking. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Lenten fast to stock up for. It is Fat Tuesday, after all.

Before anything else, I’d like to thank you for reading this first virgin post, complete with that aromatic new-blog smell. Inhale deeply of my intellectual vapors, you must. I hope we have grand fun on this new Journey.

Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, it’s time to immolate some heretics.

NO WAIT! COME BACK, I WAS ONLY KIDDING!

Humor aside, I do intend that this first post set a general tone for some of what I will be doing as long as this thing lasts. And, as this is an infant blog, it could go up in smoke just as fast as I can say Velma the Velociraptor vaulted voluptuously, verifying V’s vicious vocal vendetta against Velma’s vacillatory vibes. Probably even faster because my tongue is uncannily clumsy with alliteration. So let us begin.

I would ask those who attack the Catholic Church to consider this line of thinking before they do anything else. What exactly are you attacking, and are you attacking it in a manner that will result in something good? Using data I have conjured up through statimancy, which I learned from Television News Broadcasters, I would say about 90% of the time you do not understand exactly what you are attacking and make your jabs with little idea as to their effect.

Nearly all of the people I have met or read or heard of have a habit of attacking the Church for the following; something horrible its members have done, or a bad personal experience with one of its members. As I am about to show, this is unproductive and actually destructive to society at large. There are far better ways you could handle the situation than trying to rip apart a two-thousand year old institution.

This is not about debating theology or doctrine or science or any of that right now. This is about looking at what the Church’s purpose is and what it is intended to accomplish. I will demonstrate that by giving you an outline of what my home country, the good old United States of America, would like if every citizen was Catholic and practiced it darn near perfectly. I would say perfectly, but then that would entail Heaven and ruin the point I am trying to make.

Firstly, all those poor, jobless, struggling people? Gone. They all are being cared for in hospitals, educated by donated money from their friends and neighbors, fed and clothed until they can get back on their feet, and spiritually healed by the ministrations of dedicated Priests and Nuns. All those greedy politicians? Gone. Politicians would work solely to manage the resources we have so that we function excellently as a country, for they would see it not only as a civic but divinely ordained duty that they must care for those that put them in power. Crime? Gone. When everyone respects the sanctity of human life, murder and violence become unthinkable, and theft is already pretty much gone due to the lack of poor people. The Death Penalty would no longer exist, and any current criminals would be healed by a new and vibrant influx of Priests. Abortion would not exist, there would be no need for the day after pill because rape would be unthinkable. Who would dare defile a daughter of God? Any children unable to be supported by those that had them would be cared for out of the benevolence of one’s Parish, which all would happily give money and time to. As for our fears of over-population, they are out of place. With everyone practicing abstinence before marriage, we would pretty much eradicate sexually transmitted disease, and with the strength of character and matrimonial love being celebrated, sex would be reserved and respected in a way that did not result in an obscene glut of children. Of course, people also forget that we have enough food to feed the world’s hungry by ourselves right now, and that more people means more minds focusing on how to feed the new population through better farming techniques and the like. In fact, most forget that an ideal Church would have roughly 25% or more of its population living in celibacy as Priests, Brothers, Sisters, and Nuns, to say nothing of the lay single life vocations. As for homosexuals, for I have heard voiced the fear that they would be exterminated, this is not part of Church teaching. Those with that trial to face would fare far better than they do now, being lovingly accepted by all and aided in their quest for a chaste life so that they might happily live out God’s plan for their lives. Respect for the arts and sciences would boom as people and the Church itself poured money into new technology and more and more beautiful works of art. The only limit to either of these things would be that they respect humanity in its sacredness. So, no fetal stem cells or cloning. No intentionally crass art. That’s about all we’d lose. Medicine itself would rise to new heights as people threw themselves body and soul at the behest of their God to heal the sick….

I’d go on, but I think I’ve said enough here. All of the above? THAT is the Church’s mission, along with the Salvation of the World. Granted, such an idealistic place is improbable, for the Church is a Hospital for Sinners, not a Country Club for Saints, and thus can be home to many a blackened and hardened heart. That is what you attack when you try to tear down the Church. Your efforts do not seem so righteous now, do they? If you would like a better suggestion as to how to deal with us, here’s one. When you see or hear or know any one of us who is not living out the Commandments of God, not living as a true Catholic should live, do not attack that which can make him do good. Remind him of the teachings of his own Faith, and send him back to us for some spiritual advising. This is easily applied to all Christians. I am asking you not to lay there and allow people to do Evil in the Name of God, but to enlist the Church in turning them back to the straight and narrow path. And time and time again, that is what we fight to do with any of our sheep who have gone astray. Westboro Baptists getting you down? You think that street-preacher is being too vicious? You hear that a Catholic shot an Abortionist? Let Christianity right the wrongs of its members, and help Us do so by pointing them to the Church teachings that forbid such things. Don’t sit there and shriek about how all of us are evil and try to tear the whole Church down.